Early liberals focused on dismantling de jure social hierarchies and mercantilist policies, but the onset of the Industrial Revolution presented a new set of challenges.. Though some hewed to the laissez faire doctrines of the 18th century and were suspicious of any industry regulation, the majority accepted that, given the
In a recent piece for Vox, Zach Beauchamp claims that “Many modern liberals, including some brilliant and well-regarded thinkers, do not seem up to the task of defending liberalism from its newest wave of critics.” He says that they lean on old arguments and sit smugly on the victories of
The president of the United States recently issued a statement – albeit via Twitter – where he “hereby ordered” that United States companies needed to move their manufacturing away from China. This was met with much derision and no small amount of mockery, but to a person unversed in the nuances of
A liberal is a person who can’t take his own side in a quarrel. Robert Frost Richard Rorty stands as the most controversial figure in 20th century English-language philosophy. As William Curtis documents in Defending Rorty, Rorty’s untroubled attitude and deflationary arguments were a lightning rod among analytic
Two years ago, a group of friends and I were discussing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to “intensify” the crackdown on black-market cigarettes after having enacted a tax hike on them. Since NYPD officers ostensibly looking for black-market cigarettes had killed Eric Garner a mere three
As one of the most progressive candidates in the 2020 field—even to the left of Bernie Sanders on some tellings—it may seem ridiculous on its face to make a “neoliberal” case for Senator Elizabeth Warren. And “left-neoliberal” will strike many readers as an oxymoron. I hope to explain
* What follows is the final chapter of Dr. Du Bois’s 1896 book The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638–1870. Much historical research since Du Bois’s time has added to and in some respects may have altered our understandings. And Du Bois’
This unvoiced question lies hidden at the center of many of the most pressing policy debates in economics today. From discussion in the US over whether ‘Every billionaire is a policy failure’, to those in Africa about the proper role of foreign, especially Chinese, investment in devising an effective development
In 2016 federal prosecutors charged Terance Gamble with violating the federal law prohibiting felons from possessing firearms. Gamble’s case could hardly have been more run-of-the-mill; federal prosecutors bring thousands of these felon-in-possession cases each year. Yet Gamble argued that because he had already pleaded guilty in Alabama to a
The title of Chris Arnade’s book seems at times paradoxical, as one is reading through the catalogue of indignities endured by the people he sat with, talked to, and photographed. But that, of course, is the point: even in the most rusted-through of the Rust Belt, even in the
Are you lonely tonight? Or do you have a sense that many in your community are lonely? If so, then Timothy P. Carney has written a book about you. Alienated America describes a breakdown in American civil society, what this breakdown means, and why it has happened. The collapse of
In his magisterial history of postwar European history, aptly titled Postwar, Tony Judt writes, “Europe’s postwar history is a story shadowed by silences; by absence. The continent of Europe was once an intricate, interwoven tapestry of overlapping languages, religions, communities, and nations […] Between 1914 and 1945, that Europe was